Bethel Henry Strousberg

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Bethel Henry Strousberg
Bethel Henry Strousberg ( Illustrirte Zeitung of October 16, 1869)
Caricature in the Romanian satirical magazine Ghimpele from 7 May 1871, the dog (Germany) eats from a vessel (“Strousberg affair”), caught and put on a leash by the Romanian Chamber of Deputies
Family portrait of Strousberg by Ludwig Knaus , 1870
Strousberg mausoleum after restoration

Bethel Henry Strousberg (born November 20, 1823 in Neidenburg , Masuria , † May 31, 1884 in Berlin ; born / actually Baruch Hirsch Strausberg , Germanized Barthel Heinrich Strausberg , changed to Strousberg in London) was a major German entrepreneur of Jewish origin from the early days of came from simple circumstances and was mainly involved in railway construction. He was known as the “European railway king” and at times employed 100,000 workers. 20 years later, his empire had collapsed. Strousberg used the 1867/68 ofAugust Orth built the Strousberg Palace on Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin .

Life

Strousberg was born in 1823 as Baruch Hirsch Strausberg in the Masurian town of Neidenburg. He came from a Jewish merchant family who had lived in the city for two generations. His father was Abraham Baruch (from 1813 Strausberg), the son of a wealthy rural trader. His mother, Caroline Gottheimer, came from the West Prussian city of Inowrocław . Strousberg attended school in Königsberg and graduated with intermediate school leaving certificate.

After the early death of his father, at the age of sixteen, he went to London in 1839 to see his maternal uncle Gottheimer. In his trading house (coal trade) he learned the commercial profession. In addition, he dealt with languages, music and history. Also in London he got to know the banking and stock exchange system and gained a reputation as an economist. He also joined the Anglican State Church, Anglicized his name to Bethel Henry Strousberg and in 1845 married the Anglican bourgeois daughter Mary Ann Swan.

The advancing railway construction in Great Britain aroused his interest, so he made plans to build railways in Prussia from the beginning of the 1860s . After the liberalization of the Prussian railway policy in 1862, good contacts with the new Trade Minister Itzenplitz and with British financiers gave him the first concession to build the Insterburg – Tilsit railway line . This was put into operation in 1865. A far larger project was the construction of the East Prussian southern railway Pillau (port) –Königsberg – Rastenburg – Lyck – Prostken, which was put into operation in 1871, with a connection to the Russian broad gauge network. Soon after construction began, there were serious financing difficulties.

In the next few years other routes followed, including Berlin – Görlitz , Hanover – Altenbeken and Breslau – Tarnowitz.

The method of execution and financing of the building projects practiced by Strousberg was new. He hired general contractors and thus spread the risks. However, the services of the general contractor were not paid for in cash, but rather in installments based on the progress of construction with shares in the newly founded railway company. The founders and financiers only had to raise a fraction of the actual costs and received substantial commissions, in some cases also profits from the delivery of railway material or from the sale of land that was needed for railway systems.

What was dubious about it was that the share capital was set higher than the actual construction costs. The general contractor thus received shares whose nominal value was higher than the construction costs. Trading in these stocks artificially inflated the value of the companies.

Strousberg was also involved in other projects, e.g. B. as a newspaper publisher with the newspaper “Die Post”, which was newly published in 1866; bought u. a. the machine works Georg Egestorff in Hanover, operated rolling mills and blast furnaces as well as the then ultra-modern Berlin cattle market . Compared to other entrepreneurs of the era, he was very socially minded, paid comparatively good wages and provided additional social benefits. In 1868 Strousberg acquired the Miröschau Palace in Bohemia, and he was also the owner of the palace in neighboring Sbirow .

When, in 1866, Prince Karl Eitel Friedrich of the House of Hohenzollern became Prince of Romania , Strousberg used his government contacts to initiate discussions as a company for local railway projects. As a result of the conflict between Prussia and Austria at the time, there was a Prussian interest in breaking the Austrian monopoly on Danube shipping and establishing an overland route. By means of intrigue and bribery, Strousberg obtained the concession for the Romanian railway construction in the summer of 1868. After its promising start, however, technical and financial problems soon emerged, some of which led to inferior construction, and some to a halt. The criticism of Strousberg even led to diplomatic complications. Strousberg had to withdraw from the business with great financial losses.

From 1867 to 1871 Strousberg was a member of the Reichstag of the North German Confederation for the Conservative Party as a member of the Reichstag constituency of Königsberg 9 district .

In 1873 Strousberg also came under criticism on the political level, the spokesman for which was the liberal Reichstag member Eduard Lasker . This denounced the financing practices of the founders and made Strousberg an example of dishonest machinations; his sponsor Count Heinrich Friedrich August von Itzenplitz had to resign as minister. Strousberg initially survived the founding crash that also took place in 1873, but at the end of the year experienced a personal blow of fate when his son Arthur Strousberg died at the age of only 23.

Strousberg then acquired a hereditary burial on the east wall of the Matthäus-Kirchhof in Schöneberg and had a mausoleum built there for his family. In addition, he commissioned Reinhold Begas to design a grave monument for his son that was to be placed in the mausoleum. By the time the work of art was completed in 1874, however, his financial difficulties had worsened so much that he could no longer pay Begas; At times, Strousberg even had to mortgage the mausoleum himself. The model of the funerary monument for Arthur Strousberg remained in the possession of the artist, who had it cast in bronze at his own expense in 1900 for the Paris World Exhibition and thus won a Grand Prix . The city of Berlin bought the grave monument from the estate of Begas and had it erected in 1913 at the II. Reinickendorf Municipal Cemetery , where it has been preserved.

In 1875, after a hasty departure on the train from Moscow to St. Petersburg , Strousberg was arrested for not paying bills of exchange. A few weeks later he was charged with inciting credit crimes in Moscow. His companies then went bankrupt. In 1876 the rights granted to him in Russia were denied and he was sentenced to expulsion; he was forbidden to re-enter.

Strousberg spent his last years in economically very cramped conditions in Berlin, making failed attempts to build on his earlier successes. His large villa on Wilhelmstrasse went bankrupt and was later bought by the British Embassy. In 1998 the embassy was rebuilt at the same location.

Bethel Henry Strousberg died in Berlin in 1884 at the age of 60 as a result of a heart attack and was buried in the Strousberg mausoleum in the Matthäus cemetery, next to his son Arthur and his wife Mary Ann, who had died two years earlier. The burial site still exists today (field J-OE-005). In 2009 the mausoleum was restored by the Transport History Foundation / Monument Office Bonn.

Honors

In 1926 the city of Hanover named a cross street between Göttinger and Ricklinger Strasse after him. Since Strousberg was of Jewish origin, it was in the time of Nazi in 1935 after the founder of the Federal Statistical Office in Hanover and Lower Saxony Heimatbund in Kettler street renamed. Since 1945 it has been called Strousbergstrasse again .

Fonts

  • Lawson's merchant's magazine: statist and commercial review ed. By BH Strousberg. 1852-1853
  • Dr. Strousberg and his work described by himself. With a photograph and a railroad map . J. Guttentag (D. Collin), Berlin 1876. Digitized by the Central and State Library Berlin, 2013. URN urn: nbn: de: kobv: 109-1-7908828 . Digitized
  • Berlin, a stacking place of world trade through a Kiel Canal . J. Guttentag (D. Collin), Berlin 1878
  • The little journal . Edited by Bethel Henry Strousberg. Berlin 1878–1881
  • Questions of time. Essays. 1. About parliamentarianism . J. Guttentag (D. Collin), Berlin 1879 digitized

literature

  • Ernst Korfi: Dr. Bethel Henry Strousberg. Biographical characteristics. With portrait. G. Eichler, Berlin 1870 digitized .
  • Strousberg and the work. A warning word for capitalists and educated workers . Kortkampf, Berlin 1870.
  • J. Hoppe: Dr. Strousberg and Consorten, the Romanian government and the holders of Romanian rail bonds . Eugen Grosser, Berlin 1871 digitized .
  • Friedrich vom Rhein: Revelations about Dr. Strousberg and its Romanian railway company . Eugen Grosser, Berlin 1871 digitized .
  • Dr. Strousberg the 'railway king'. His life and work until his arrest . 3rd edition Gloor, Stuttgart 1875.
  • Catalog of the Dr. Strousberg's library along with a number of art objects that are auctioned on June 12, 1876 in Berlin . Berlin 1876.
  • Constantin von Wurzbach : Strousberg, Bethel Heinrich . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 40th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1880, pp. 97–100 ( digitized version ).
  • Catalog of the Dr. Strousberg'schen Library from Zbirow Castle in Bohemia R. Lephés 379th Berlin Auctions catalog. Lepke, Berlin 1882.
  • Henry Strousberg: The End of Exile. Drama in five acts . Magdeburg 1916.
  • Gottfried Reitböck: The railway king Strousberg and its importance for the European economic life . In: Contributions to the history of technology and industry . 14, 1924, pp. 65-84.
  • Karl Ottmann: Bethel Henry Strousberg, railway king of the private railway era . In: Archives for railways . 70, 1960, pp. 167-208.
  • Wolfgang Voigt: The railway king or Romania was in Linden. Materials on the social history of workers' housing construction during industrialization. With examples from Hanover's factory suburb of Linden (around 1845–75) and a necessary excursus about Germany's railway king, BH Strousberg . Sozialpolitischer Verlag, Berlin 1980.
  • Horst Mauter: The rise and fall of the "railway king " Bethel Henry Strousberg (1823–1884) . Berlin 1981 (miniatures on the history, culture and monument preservation of Berlin, No. 5).
  • Heinz Wolter: Bethel Henry Strousberg . In: Gustav Seeber (Hrsg.): Gestalten der Bismarckzeit . Volume II. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-05-000089-9 , pp. 91–117.
  • Manfred Ohlsen: The railway king Bethel Henry Strousberg. A Prussian founding career . Verlag der Nation, 2nd edition, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-373-00003-3 .
  • Peter M. Fritsch, Günther Wermusch: The calculated error. Stories about speculators and gamblers from yesterday and today . Verlag Die Wirtschaft, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-349-00586-1, Chapter “Gründungsschwindler”, pp. 48–70 .
  • Joachim Borchart: The European railway king Bethel Henry Strousberg . CH Beck, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-406-35297-9
  • Julius H. Schoeps : Strousberg, Bethel Henry . In: the same (ed.): New Lexicon of Judaism . Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh 1992, ISBN 3-570-09877-X , p. 435.
  • Rüdiger vom Bruch : The financial genius and his industrial empire. The fall of the 'railroad king' Bethel Henry Strousberg . In: Uwe Schulz (Ed.): Large processes. Law and Justice in Society and History . CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47711-9 , pp. 250-260. Digitized only pages 250 to 258 .
  • Ralf Roth: The fall of the railway king Bethel Henry Strousberg. A Jewish business citizen in the turmoil of the founding of the Reich . In: Yearbook for Research on Antisemitism , 10. Berlin 2001, pp. 86–112.
    • Ralf Roth: Rise and Fall of a Railway King, in Damals , 7, 2001, pp. 22-27. With numerous figs.
    • Ralf Roth: The Century of the Railway. The rule over space and time 1800–1914 . Ostfildern 2005, ISBN 3-7995-0159-2 .
    • Ralf Roth: Strousberg Affair, in Handbook of Antisemitism. Events, decrees, controversies. Vol. 4. Saur, Munich 2011, ISBN 3598240767 , pp. 402-405 (available online on vd. Platforms).
  • Karl-Eberhard Murawski: Bethel Henry Strousberg and the railway construction in East Prussia , in: Michael Brocke , Margret Heitmann , Harald Lordick (eds.): On the history and culture of the Jews in East and West Prussia . Hildesheim: Olms, 2000, pp. 397-404

Web links

Commons : Bethel Henry Strousberg  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Andreas Kossert: Masuria: East Prussia's forgotten south . 5th edition. Random House, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-570-55006-9 , pp. 171-174 .
  2. ^ A b c Ziegler Dieter: Railways and State in the Age of Industrialization . In: Quarterly for social and economic history . Supplement, No. 127 . Steiner, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-515-06749-3 , pp. 157-171 .
  3. ↑ Bernd Haunfelder , Klaus Erich Pollmann : Reichstag of the North German Confederation 1867-1870. Historical photographs and biographical handbook (= photo documents on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 2). Droste, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-7700-5151-3 , photo p. 323, short biography p. 475.
  4. ↑ Julius H. Schoeps, p. 435.
  5. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Alter St. Matthäus-Kirchhof Berlin. A cemetery guide . 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Edition Luisenstadt, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-936242-16-4 , p. 15.
  6. ↑ Mende: Alter St. Matthäus-Kirchhof Berlin . P. 15.
personal data
SURNAME Strousberg, Bethel Henry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Strousberg, Baruch Hirsch; Strausberg, Barthel Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur from the early days
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1823
PLACE OF BIRTH Neidenburg , East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1884
Place of death Berlin